Game raises money for cancer center, free screenings

Friday

Apr 19, 2013 at 9:50 PM

The Nicholls State University baseball team tried Friday evening to strike out cancer on the field.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

The Nicholls State University baseball team tried Friday evening to strike out cancer on the field.The team raised more than $500 for the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center at TGMC by donating a portion of their ticket proceeds in their game against McNeese State University and auctioning off a few signed items, said the center’s director Amy Ponson.John Moore, a two-time cancer survivor and a patient of the center, got to throw out the first pitch, even as he used a walker to get to the pitcher’s mound. He stood with his wife, Libbi.Moore, a Vietnam Black Hawk veteran, is “a strong man who is determined to never give up and keep fighting the fight,” said Rhonda Alfred, spokeswoman for Terrebonne General Medical Center.Moore said he attributes his remission, first from his leukemia and then from Hodgkin’s disease, to the cancer center. Raising money for it is important “not only to me, but to all cancer survivors.” Money from the game will go to free cancer screenings and patient support services at the center, Ponson said.The center’s next screening is a prostate cancer from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at Renovations Hardware, 16815 E. Main St. It is free to those who are without health insurance or under-insured, Ponson said. If you have health insurance, your insurance company will be billed.“Early detection truly is the best protection,” she said. “If you catch cancer early enough, we’re able to treat it successfully. In the later stages it can become very difficult to treat.”Ponson said she has worked with the Nicholls softball team in the past for a “Strike Out Cancer” game.“After working with them, and it being so wonderful, I reached out to Coach Seth Thibodeaux — the head coach for Nicholls’ baseball team — about doing a game to benefit our cancer center. ... Nicholls baseball has always been a group of guys that support their local community and get involved,” she said. “They really wanted to do something for their local patients and their treatments,” she said.About seven players and two coaches toured the center Friday morning, she said.

Staff Writer Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at 448-7617 or katie.urbaszewski@dailycomet.com.